Board of Trustees

Lou Anna K. Simon, President

President of Michigan State University and MSU College of Law

Trustee Simon is the 20th President of Michigan State University and she is also President of MSU Law. Prior to assuming the role of president, Simon was provost and vice president for academic affairs at Michigan State University, a position to which she was appointed in 1993. At the time of her appointment, she was among the youngest to achieve such a position in the Association of American Universities (AAU), and was one of only 11 women to hold the position of chief academic officer among the 62 leading research institutions that compose the organization. Currently, Simon is one of only nine women holding the position of chief executive officer among these AAU institutions.

Dr. Simon has a distinguished history with MSU. After earning her doctorate in Administration and Higher Education here in 1974, she became a member of the MSU faculty and assistant director of the Office of Institutional Research (now the Office of Planning and Budgets). From there, she moved into a variety of administrative roles, including Assistant provost for general academic administration during the eighties and Associate provost in the early nineties. Since 1999, Simon has been a member of the executive committee of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), an academic consortium of twelve major teaching and research universities in the Midwest, including the eleven institutions that compose the Big Ten, along with the University of Chicago. She was elected chairperson of the CIC in 2000, a position traditionally filled by a provost, and served until she was named MSU president.